Novocaine
by queenly
Summary: Yuugi fears that history will repeat itself. Rivalshipping.
**A/N: ive been busy**

"Where are you going?"

The ability to comprehend the inquiry is miraculous. Rheum dots his eyes' corners; the tips of his fingers still ache from the striking of alarm to silence its screech. _Where are you going?_ He lolls his shoulders.

"Go back to sleep," is his command, and it's gentle, and he means no malice. Though- once knees decide to at last unbend -he finds he lacks aptitude of further movement. The fingers wrapped at his wrist aren't tight enough to pain him, only to pique his wonderment.

"I have to go to work." As he is vocally, he's slight in prying his sleeve loose. Yuugi curls his arm back to his chest; he peers upward, shining eyes attenuated with early morning veneer.

"...Okay." Head again meets with the gradually dissipating warmth of his pillow, and into the fabric he murmurs in tired croon, "I love you."

Kaiba, facing the alignment of dress shirts hung on closet's bar, spares not an outward reply, though finds himself basking idly in the comment, as well as in the soft exhale and even breaths from behind him. It's a feeling foreign to him, and his mind drones on about it all the while nimbly carrying buttons into their slots up to his throat. A long tie of silky cobalt begins its sole duty, and he's still listening, and he's still thinking, and he's still- realizing, in several laggard blinks, that he's never been so absent as to ready himself out of order like this. With deft indifference, he pauses, rewinds, pauses, and swaps outfit for nudity again. The door to the washroom clicks behind him, and soon he's shrouded in bullets of water that act to flush out his grogginess- which he's sure that's all that is at fault. All that is at fault- not that his boyfriend has not once ever wondered where it is that he's going; not the way he'd been so frenetically clung to; not that he's yet to know a day where he wasn't the only one awake before morning melded to afternoon.

He's truly spent with himself in the moment, the moment in which he stands beneath droplets and concerns himself with trivial happenings. So what, so what if this day's routine doesn't play identical to all others in his adult life, so what if Yuugi's behaving in a peculiar way; Yuugi's a peculiar person, he's been accustomed with this for years. _For years-_ it reiterates in him in nettling mantra. He snaps a towel from the rack aside him as he steps out, trailing drips to the tile. _Stop it._

The bed holds still within it his suitor, furled into repose, catching easy inhales and eyelids twitching. Kaiba allots himself the vice of gazing with tact far from furtive. Shoulders claim once more the cool material of shirt, tie, jacket, and he meets the day with what he prays are thoughts purely evanescent.

Yet, his curiosity nips again at his mind like the honed incisors of a teething pup, when he's smothered in affection upon his return home. His toes cross the threshold in the same manner each late afternoon, occasionally past when they should, though they always do nonetheless. He comes home everyday, and he takes note of the sweet chime of greeting everyday, and he accepts the lips to his cheek everyday, everyday, everyday- so why is it now, on this day, one out of every, that he finds himself near writhing in an embrace that's far exceeded natural length, finds an unusual amount of kisses to his tight mouth...or, perhaps- perhaps he's overthinking.

"Hi," Yuugi says, and he's _grinning_ , as if he's been waiting ages to reunite, as if there's a wildfire of adoration cast through his veins, and it's dashing out like mad in form of hugs and hand holding. "How was your day?"

The thumb running over the back of his hand is unnerving, he decides, jerking away from the light grasp on all of his fingers. Tints of dull purple flirt through the vast lavenders he peers into. "What the hell is up with you?"

Penitence skewers him through the middle. Flinch- the most subtle of shudders. His words, as per usual, lack proper affability. Though, at least he isn't acting out of character, not like the one whom claims speech next.

"Nothing's up with me." Already demure, Yuugi shrinks beneath his sharp leer. "I, just, wanted to know how your day went..? Was I being too-?"

"You're right," dished from himself leads him to believe that he _is_ behaving uncharacteristically. But, anything to quell the quiver to his lips, which Kaiba senses was hoped to be overlooked. "I'm..."

Drawl drags, lags, halts. And he stiffens, because, _good Lord,_ he's never seen tears collect so swiftly in someone's eyes.

Where they stand, steps placed carefully just inside the latched front door; where they stand grows positively _gelid_. The clunk of metal to tile is dull and harrowing, and he can not care less that his exorbitantly priced briefcase has fallen to its side. Or, that the knee of his pants is not meant to ever connect with the ground, as it reduces the difficulty of placing palms so delicately at either side of the face before him, a face of such angelic divinity that he feels much too keenly should not ever be marred by moisture.

Certainly, certainly, thought pierces him that, Yuugi's always been a crybaby, and there's no need to fuss over him this way. There's no need to aim at him a gaze of fallen stars; highly expendable to draw him so close that their breaths mingle within the same bounds, just to _look_ at him, to _look at him_ until he feels he may meet the same fate of volatilizing apathy.

Between their joined forms, Yuugi draws fists up to dam his flooded little eyes, and he shakes his little head, and he's dainty- dainty and delicate like a little doll, Kaiba decides, moving his hands to rest under either of his arms and carry him away from the entryway, away from his fallen briefcase, away from ill feeling. They're in the living room, and Yuugi's curled in his lap and he's _precious, he's just so Goddamn precious that Kaiba can feel his chest grow tight with every sobbing exhale he's forced to hear._

"I don't..." Yuugi begins, head residing crooked at his boyfriend's clavicle. He listens to the thrumming of Kaiba's heart in cooling mantra. "I don't want to sound stupid here..."

"You won't." He's hardly conscious of the way his touch dances softly through Yuugi's hair, and he almost stops himself- _almost_. "Tell me."

"I-I just love you, you know tha-"

"Of course I know that."

Charcoal liner smudges the heel of Yuugi's palm when he swipes away the lingering wet. Repression is futile; he'll never quit with feeling so utterly vacuous, asinine, imbecilic. He'll never quit with feeling as though he should bring hush to his tongue, but instead he's spilling all, bordering on palavering- a habit of his brought aside anxiety.

"I had that dream again last night. The one about...you know."

Kaiba hums sans melody. _That_ dream that's not a dream at all, but a treacherous slaughtering of sound soul. _That_ dream that is a repetitive score of his past, of _their_ past- not _they_ who reside now as if not the most sporadic of tremors should part their touch, but _they_ who lived intertwined, who only parted by way of inextinguishable prophecy. Yuugi, and the one who's name leaves his trembling lips in the dead of night.

A slow pause. "And it...it made me realize...that I could lose you. I could lose you at anytime, Seto. And that _terrifies_ me."

"That's hardly something worth crying over," he chides, because it isn't, it's irrefutable. There exists not one man on Earth whom can escape death and her tantalizing allure. "I'm here now."

"I know that." And there's an airiness returned to his voice that had vacated aside prior melancholy. He moves in gentle shifts to peer northward so slightly. "I'm grateful, of course. But...I can't help thinking...I can't help thinking that I'm setting myself up again."

"Have we not been through this?"

"Not exactly."

He swallows his exhale like a pull of bitter brew. "We're both our own person, Yuugi."

"Right," he allows. "And I know you aren't...him. I know you're different. I _love_ that you're different. I just can't-"

"I know," Kaiba interjects, time and time and time again. "You fear more agony."

And Yuugi- he can only nod, ever slight and ever slow.

"Don't." Their lips brush to relay the deepest of fragility. Kaiba cannot keep himself from focusing upon the way he winces again, as if he not only fears abandonment, but likewise holds abhorrence toward any implication of a false reality. Centimeters split their sundered faces, when again Yuugi is snagged in dolor, and he speaks so lowly he should go unheard; relays the faintest, "Sorry," and cowers forward.

Kaiba takes role as scratched record. "Don't," he says again, and he doesn't mind the dark blots appearing at his shoulder. His jaw tightens.

"Listen," is his firm order. "I'm _here_. Can't you accept that?"

"But-"

"Can you? Or can you not?"

Yuugi's eyes are enormous; they glisten; they blink; they bore into Kaiba like needles. "...Yeah."

"Then that's it." He reads ire when he circles arms over his back so tightly that Yuugi feels as though he'll never be released- which is precisely why his lips catch mirth as he returns it, with his own arms twined over Kaiba's shoulders. And, still disclosing blithe aura, he presses his mouth to each cheek before him. He sniffs once, lets outward such a weighted breath, drops fingers slightly wobbling to straighten a tie of cobalt silk.

"You're not going to leave me?"

Whether it's meant as a grappling for assurance, or a statement to pacify himself, Kaiba hasn't solid conclusion. However, he answers regardless, answers with passion in his tone when he out lets, "Never," and with passion in their perpetually meeting mouths. Yet, if it'd open his mind to just how raw and real and true he feels, how his skin is scorching and his eyes ablaze- if that's what it takes to make him realize the way his heart hammers alongside each thought of him, then he'd kiss Yuugi a thousand times over.

Just such plagues him now; a throb alights in his chest when he notes the flush to dusted below lilac eyes, the dimple indented to the left of his pretty lips, the interlocking of tiny, tiny, precious little fingers within his own, large and rough and frigid. "So..." hardly meets Kaiba's hearing, as he's so overwhelmed, though he tunes into what comes next. "You never answered me. How was your day?"

Kaiba permits the momentary quirk to his own mouth's corners. "You would not believe what that idiot from PR did this morning."

Intrigued, Yuugi peeks brows, says, "I bet I would."

They're _there_ , resting in a position gauche yet comfortable all the same, and Yuugi has his head resting at robust chest, just _listening;_ listening to the love of his life go on about whom'd screwed up throughout his working day. They're _there_ , and they'll continue to be, and Yuugi cannot wait to indulge in the story of the next afternoon, just as so, and to awaken in the morning to cool, empty sheets, but with a lingering spot of heat at his face. Yuugi cannot wait, for he adores this day- one out of every -just as he adores the rest. Everyday, everyday, everyday.


End file.
